Transformers Cloud: Hellwarp

The second entry in my “What My Wife Got Me for Christmas” series is the first of two Transformers Cloud figures. This is a series of Japan-only repaints that take mostly recent Generations Voyager class figures and repaint them into someone else, attached to some kind of time traveling or dimension hopping storyline that is tough to follow in the severely Engrished comics that are included with the figures. The first one that I received is Hellwarp, an interesting character indeed.

My lore knowledge here is full of holes, but here’s the rundown on how Hellwarp came into being. In one of the Japanese Beast Wars series, Starscream is brought back as a roboshark named Hellscream. The thought process with Hellwarp is that this figure is Skywarp undergone the same treatment. So, this is Skywarp, all decked out as a cybernetic shark, a repaint of the Generations Skybyte figure.

To begin, once more, the packaging here is excellent. The Cloud figures come in pullout cardboard boxes that have some real nice character art on the front, and then the pretty standard Transformers info on the back. But these are probably the closest things to convention style boxes I’ve ever seen on a more or less retail figure, and I think that’s impressive. 

Hellwarp is a black and purple repaint, and both colors are used really well. There is enough grey to make the other colors jump off the toy, and placement is really strong. For example, the legs: the purple of the hip joints, the black of the thighs and ankles, the grey of the calf armor and purple knee pads. It’s a nice arrangement, and along with the purple and grey of the biceps and excellent placement on the shark head, makes the figure visually striking.

And, in truth, the visuals make this toy, because it doesn’t have too much else. The Skybyte figure is hampered by a number of issues, and Hellwarp has all of them as well. Those big back panels don’t really go anyplace, so they just stick up off the back, and there isn’t any real way you can fold them to make them seem less awkward. And speaking of awkward folding, that right forearm yeesh. The right arm in general is completely unposeable, as there is no way you can move it to make it look good. There’s no wrist joint, so turning the forearm leaves the hand looking really awkward, and when viewed at pretty much any angle aside from straight ahead, which even then is not a good look, that forearm looks horrible. The left arm fires a missile and spins for . . . some reason. The legs suffer a similar although not as horrific problem, as the lower legs are simply those two grey pieces half folded. The waist is also really slender, but that at least is addressed visually by the shark fins folding slightly behind, so that the impression of depth and weight is created. Viewed head on, arms at his sides, this is a pretty nice figure, and there’s enough to look at that in that stock still, at attention pose the right arm can be overlooked in favor of all the other things that are happening. The heads are excellent: the robot head is detailed and menacing, the large fin on top adding to the menace; the shark head is cool and characterful. 

 

Shark mode is really, really nice. It evokes the Seasons 2 and 3 of Beast Wars aesthetic, the cybernetic or Transmetal animals. Skybyte wasn’t from Beast Wars, I know, but this figure isn’t a straightforward animal mode, like Generations Rhinox or Rattrap. Permanently curved in that leaping from the water shape, the figure doesn’t really sit well on a surface, and would probably be best displayed on a stand of some type so as to maximize that leaping look. The jaw opens and closes a bit, which is cute, but there isn’t much poseability with the shark mode either, as the large backpanels of the robot essentially shellform around it to make the shark. The fins aren’t able to move much, the tail moves only slightly up and down and not to the sides at all. But overall, shark mode is better to look at than robot mode, as it is at very least a solid, complete looking mode, not having to deal with thin places or bad viewing angles. 

I don’t like the feeling that I’ve started basically doing write ups that pick out these issues with a toy only to reach a conclusion that says “problems, but I like the toy,” but that’s absolutely the truth here. There are many things to dislike about the base figure here, but the Hellwarp deco is a good one that, much like Legends Slipstream, gives the figure a new life, a different enough look to show the merit or worth of the figure itself, if only in this specific version. And I think that Cloud Hellwarp certainly does that for this mold. A really imperfect toy, but one that a nice paint job and a bit of exclusivity serves pretty nicely. Hellwarp looks good front the front on a shelf, and I’m more than happy to have him on mine, issues and all. 

 

It's alright Sharky, I still love you.